


Sarai and the Giantess

by CyberpunkDragons



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Giants, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Sex, Tags Are Hard, These Tags Feel Pandery, Way too much lore, mostly lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:41:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberpunkDragons/pseuds/CyberpunkDragons
Summary: Sarai, an adventurer from the far southern lands, has come north in search of a mysterious woman with knowledge she seeks - when the only person she finds is a giantess named Erika the two make do with what little a ruined city can offer them.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 4





	Sarai and the Giantess

Far away from the heat of the southern deserts, nestled upon the banks of two rivers that intersect into a lagoon where reeds grow as thick as grass and half-sunken into the waters rested a long abandoned city. Sarai walked its crumbling ruined stone streets and combed through the wreckage that had once been houses and stores to no avail. It was a dead city, except for herself, the birds that flocked here, the frogs and fish that swam the flooded low-town and the solitary woman who tended to the shrine that overlooked the lagoon.

Reeds choked the walk ways across the shallow marshes between districts – it was a wet place to live but the woman barely noticed. Many times larger than Sarai, they waded through waters that Sarai had to paddle across on make-shift rafts. A giant of a woman who invited her into their home despite Sarai telling her of how she came to this place.

“I was told by a demon to find a woman with no mouth who lived in the city of reeds.”

A moment of alarm gave way to a jovial grin, and the woman – Erika – offered her soup made of swamp carrots and fish before telling her that they were the only ones left in the city.

“Tis the city of reeds, Reierby,” their deep voice filled the large chamber of a former town hall made for giants, “but I would be the last of those who live in these accursed ruins.”

“Why so?”

They waved their large hand to her, dismissing the subject, “The warriors crossed the sea in search of fame and glory, but others stayed behind to do the same.”

“I see.”

“Perhaps in the northern holds you’ll find your path, particularly if you’re handy with that spear.”

“I am – do the northern holds need soldiers?”

They nodded, “The draugan rise every ten thousand moons and lay siege from the depths. About your size, though don’t be expecting a friendly welcome. Some things a giant has to bear the burden of.”

Sarai had heard tales of the draugan, fairy tales told to warn children from wandering into the savage north where the light-skinned people dwelled. Some part of truth did linger in them – the truth that for many centuries the giants had kept the humans as slaves. Perhaps the tales of the sacrifices to their violent god had been true as well.

“I will not push myself upon them if they do not want my help,” Sarai announced, though with far more venom leeching out than she had intended.

Erika had noticed, but bit their tongue and drank their beer with little fuss. It must be hard to live alone, and Sarai had no need to twist the knife. Yet before she could apologise the giantess spoke softly, “I will find you furs for the trip, though you will need to sew your garments yourself.”

“Thank you, you’re very gracious.”

“In truth, it is good to know there are places out there that aren’t falling to bits.”

Not for long… but that was a truth Sarai didn’t have the heart to explain to the woman. All they had to know is that her brother was ill, not that the illness was caused by something far worse than the tales she had heard of draugan.

After supper Sarai settled in to sleep. The entire city was made of white stone that had been eroded by weather and moss turning it green and brown. In the town hall where Erika made their home, the smoke of a wood fire sat uncomfortably across the floor and so she slept upon a raised slab of stone that had once been a seat. She dreamt of a burning city that night, and woke in a sweat. The humidity was a refreshingly claustrophobic feeling to endure after the dryness of the deserts and the waterless sea she had traversed to get here.

Breakfast consisted of an ash coloured bread and some fruit that grew amongst the reeds. Sarai was thankful for it, and offered to help the Giantess in their daily tasks. They agreed, largely because as they put it.

“There are places that need a delicate touch to liven them up.”

A fine statement on face value. When they told her to leave behind her armour and weapons it wasn’t even slightly troubling, but when the two of them arrived at the edge of the lagoon where an immense statue of a woman stood looking out towards the rocky reef beyond it was slightly alarming when they told her to disrobe.

“There is an old piece of the statue that was lost in the waters long before I arrived, I can’t get to it.”

What they described was odd, a jewel the size of a person’s fist that was supposedly meant to sit in the recess within the statue’s chest. Why it had not been stolen was far beyond Sarai’s ken but she agreed to it. Sarai stripped down to her undergarments, stretched out her long slender limbs and waded out into the reeds and mud towards the wreck of a ship. The lagoon was clear beyond the reeds, all the grime was trapped away in that swampy mix of plant and silt. The water was so clear she could see the bottom where fish and crab congregated to pick through underwater plants and chase each other around the rotting hulk of a ship’s skeleton.

Diving down she could taste the salt through closed mouth and her eyes were stung by the brine. How anything lived in these waters was beyond her, but after a few strong kicks it stopped stinging and she reached the mast of the ship. It was covered in shells, the crabs that scuttled within it had picked the meat from bones that were strewn over the decks and she immediately swam for the most obvious place for the jewel. Into the captain’s cabin where she found the skeleton scattered and a jewel discarded at the lowest point of the room. And there she found how the ship had come to rest upon the lagoon floor, an immense harpoon had speared through its aft and sent it sinking where the rusty armour of skeletons had drowned the crew.

Only once she surfaced and regained her breath did she realise the ship had been headed inland towards the statue when it sank. Perhaps an odd thing to note. The people of the north were known for their savagery and brutality, they waged constant war and the city no doubt fell a hundred years ago if not longer. If it had been sacked by another clan of giants, Sarai would probably never know the truth of why the ship had been carrying the jewel. That was a truth that Erika seemed likely to never disclose. Instead she simply did her task, swimming back to where Erika waited on the shore and handed it to the giantess without a word of her curious realisation.

“I don’t know why you needed me to do that.”

Erika brushed the grime from the jewel, polishing it on their shirt until it shined deep blue, “Can’t swim.”

“Oh, I thought it would be stuck in a place you cannot reach.”

“No, that is something else entirely but that has to wait for later.”

Sarai stayed disrobed for a time, hoping that her undergarments would dry in the humid, hot swampy air – a vain hope for sure, but it was better than getting her clothes wet or stripping off entirely in front of the woman. Erika probably wouldn’t have noticed, they were busy climbing the statue to place the jewel back into its right position at the heart of the statue.

“Who is this a statue of anyway?”

Erika didn’t answer for a long time, clearly choosing their words very carefully – either to simplify it for her foreign sensibilities or to conceal the true nature of the topic about to be discussed.

The story that Erika told spanned many hours, they told it as they worked to gather what little food remained growing in the city from small plots sewn with wild seeds.

In ages long before the god-king had come to rule their clans, the giants had celebrated dozens of heroes who embodied the best of their cultures. Each true clan had a hero whose feats had given name to that clan and brought them a place amongst the councils of the five queens.

Each queen had been picked from the clans, they had married and were expected to lead together in accordance to the old gods. But as the ages passed so too did many traditions and amongst the common folk arose a prophet who by his god’s will cut out his eyes but could still see. He gathered many followers and the old gods were cast aside by many. 

After a great rebellion the five queens were slain and the eyeless prophet’s foreign god had become the only god of the giants. With their god supreme the new god-king turned their attention towards the queendoms of man and for many centuries would enslave them until the draugan emerged.

Erika finished their tale with a sigh, their immense hands clasped firmly on the handle of an impressively large scythe and with a heavy chop carved down the stalks.

“The first person to rebel against the new king was his wife. When she was captured in battle the king tortured her to learn of where the other rebels had fled. Instead she bit out her tongue.”

Sarai sat on a crumbled wall as she listened, too small to held in the harvest of the heavy grass, “She kept her silence, a noble way to go.”

Erika grinned, “Aye, but she did not go a prisoner. After many months of torment she escaped to lead a battle against the king and proved he was no god.”

They gestured in what Sarai assumed was the direction of the statue.

“After that battle she lost the war to her sister-by-law. Those are the natures of strategy I suppose, where she could only bleed once the god-king’s followers could bleed a dozen times.”

“An unfortunate end, and I suppose that was the beginning of the dark reign of the giants?”

“Aye. After that it would take a hundred years for another to even think of rebellion, and each time it was crushed.”

”My people have a similar story, though not quite as bleak about a woman who tried to unite our tribes through war and instead fell in love with liberty.”

“Perhaps you can tell me tomorrow, there are trees in the hills beyond the outskirts I need to fetch.”

“I would like that.”

Erika nodded, gathering up the grass and hoisting it over their shoulder in a large bundle, “Better get to work milling this or we won’t have flour for dinner.”

The gristmill was an old waterwheel that had been repaired in pieces until it was new in whole - then aged many decades. It ground the seeds into flour as Sarai and Erika plucked them and tossed them into the grindstones.

“We giants have long lives.”

“This, I know.”

Erika’s fingers were slower and less delicate - taking bunches of the seeds where Sarai could pull each seed from the stem. It made for quicker work but coarser flour.

“When I was young this city was dead. I was born far from here and saw many living cities, none of which I have much love for.”

Sarai could not agree, so she remained quiet and plucked her seeds.

“I will say that it has been good to have company. I was going to avoid saying it, but you helped me put to rest why I lingered here.”

“I did?”

“The statue, I couldn’t leave it incomplete.”

Sarai stared up at the woman, “Then I am glad I could help.”

They finished clearing the seeds and grinding the flour before returning to Erika’s house amongst the heart of the ruins.

Sarai stoked the flames as Erika kneaded the flour into dough, the soft orange light sweating from their firm body. Drops of fire dewing on their skin as their thick muscles strained against the bread. There was an art about the way the light sculpted the work wearied face of the giantess, flickering over the softened angles and deepening in the creases carved out by worry.

Sarai watched for many long minutes until the flames started to dim and she was reminded of her task. When Erika was finished they slapped the dough into a cast iron pan and pushed it onto the fire to cook. A great shadow was thrown across them, their eyes catching Sarai’s and catching aflame.

“You are quite attractive in the firelight.”

Her heart skipped as her tongue slipped. Inarticulate.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” Erika took a seat opposite her, gazing across the fire-pit into her eyes.

“I wouldn’t be too forward by saying-“

“I like my company to be forward with me.”

Sarai placed another piece of wood on the fire, the flames did not stutter, “I should leave for the mountains soon, before the winter snows set in.”

“The mountains here don’t get much more snow in the winter. The winds are cold, you still need your furs.”

“I don’t know if I have the time.”

“It won’t take long, I have some that would be perfect for you already.”

“You don’t have to-“

“I insist,” Erika raised a hand to quiet her, “I would love to see you in fur.”

“Is that a northern thing I don’t know of?”

They sighed, grinned, offered softly, “I suppose it is, perhaps I can show you?”

Sarai understood that at least, “I would like that.”

Erika stood, made their way to her and sat beside her. The two watched the bread cook without a single thought of what they’d be eating with it. After a while it didn’t matter, food was the last thing on their minds.

Erika kissed her, their large lips softly caressing against her own, and her nose and her chin. They were slow, their finger tips crept down her body over her clothes, too large to ease under them. Her own fingers taut, holding against the stones she sat upon.

They buried her in the heavy panting of their body, laying her upon the stones, baring her to the warm of the fire. Her dark skin melting into the flickering twilight of the immense hall, dewed with the tongues of flame and one giantess. She bit her lip, her sighs barely audible over the crackling of the fire-pit. A loud cry shattering her otherwise silence.

The perfume of sweat and sea immersed her, drowning her as Erika did. Hanging over her, their stark white flesh bared - Sarai’s teeth bared, inviting, seething forth a growl and drinking in the smoke. A dreamy haze of burning, smouldering like dead embers being sparked back into life. Giant fingers clutched around her thigh and shoulder, leg lifted so the two of them could strike like flint and iron.

Bitterness scattered across her tongue, sweetnesses slithered through her body. Ashen and discomforting, smooth and honeyed. Erika’s whole hips pushed upon her, her legs locked back. One hand covering her chest as though to pin her still and the other caressing her hair. Erika’s eyes stained her own. Then the smoke began to fill the hall.

Erika let her go, and rushed to save their dinner. Bitter, charred bread was well worth it.

They draped her in furs as the chill of the pre-winter night set in, and covered themselves with trousers. Not much had to be said, that night instead of sleeping alone Sarai slept cradled in their arms.

Morning was more ashen than the bread, and not just because they had to eat it again.

“I have to leave soon,” she reminded them.

“You really have to find this woman?”

“My brother is sick,” Sarai surprised even herself with her admission.

“I... am sorry to hear that.”

“He has developed a growth on his lung, there is no treatment but stories of a cure brought me here.”

“The demon who told you where to find the lady with no mouth?”

“Yes.”

Erika stood and offered her their hand, “Come with me, I have something I want to show you.”

Sarai stood, and took Erika’s hand. They hoisted her onto their shoulder and began walking. They were quiet as they did so, not asking her questions. Across the city and onto the shore where the statue of the old goddess stood.

“This river,” they pointed out to the edge of the lagoon, “is Grief, Daughter of the Dragon Vymor. In ancient days she healed the sick, but her magic waned when she was slain in battle with the faceless god and now only heals those who visit her.”

“The water heals?”

“No human is meant to know or else they would trample on this sacred site.”

“My brother could be saved!”

“If others find out-“

Sarai kissed them on the forehead, unable to reach any further down, “They won’t!”

She leapt from their shoulder, eager to set out, “I need to return home to fetch him!”

“Today?”

“There is so little time if I have to bring him with me,” Sarai for the first time since she had swum in the lagoon checked to see if she had any scratches from her travels - her skin was clear and for good measure she scraped her palm on a rock and dipped her hand into the shallow waters on the shore.

“I guess that is right.”

Sarai watched in bewilderment as her wound healed over and the pain subsided.

“I’ll get you some food for the travel.”

Sarai stood, smiling, “You know, I think you’d like my home. You should come with me. That is, if you want to.”


End file.
